For our tenth Rundown article, one of the most important discipline in filmmaking. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best Editing as well as general commentary about the race. Thursday, we’ll cover the year’s most competitive acting race.

Best Editing

Winner Predictions

• American Sniper
• Boyhood (PP O) (TB O) (TL O)
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• The Imitation Game
• Whiplash (WL R) [New]

Runner-Up Predictions

• American Sniper (WL R) [New] (PP R) [New](TL O)
• Whiplash (TB R) [New]

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Wesley Lovell: Strangely enough, the category is filled with Best Picture nominees and it’s the two that are least likely to win that are most likely to triumph here. American Sniper is the only war film of the bunch and the Academy has shown a predilection to war films in the past. Whiplash is a frenetic, quick cutting piece that could appeal to voters for being more obvious. Boyhood is also a good possibility, especially if it’s still the Best Picture front-runner. That Boyhood won the ACE dramatic editing prize could give us a clue to how potentially popular it is. The Grand Budapest Hotel also won there, but the Academy doesn’t seem that fond of comedies. BAFTA might hold our biggest clue. Four of the five Oscar nominees were there and Whiplash came out on top. Unfortunately, without the head-to-head with American Sniper, I’m afraid that contest may be undecided until the final envelope is opened.
Peter J. Patrick: The flow from one scene to the next in Boyhood is so flawless that it often takes a minute or two to realize you’re in another year. It’s subtly impressive and should prevail over the more obvious editing accomplishments of the competition. An upset could occur if they decide to throw a bone to American Sniper and this is the category they decide to do it with.
Tripp Burton: Now, here we have one of the categories where anything can seem to happen. Boyhood and Grand Budapest Hotel won the ACE Eddie awards, and without having Birdman as competition, you might think one of them could win. But Whiplash won the BAFTA, and American Sniper could be a contender we don’t see coming because it didn’t have as many precursor nominations as other films. My hunch is Boyhood, going through 12 years of footage, will win, but any of these wouldn’t shock me. What a fun category!
Thomas La Tourrette: After their win of the ACE Eddie award, it seems likely that Boyhood will win the Oscar as well. While editing a film shot over 12 years would not be the easiest task, it also was a simpler film to edit than most of the others. Both Whiplash and American Sniper have many more cuts in them, and are probably more deserving of the award. If either were to pull an upset, I think it would be the more newly released American Sniper that could do it. Boyhood has proven to be more vulnerable than I expected, but I think it will still pick up this award.

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